Two Political Rants and An Afterthought

Hello, Gorgeous!

Well, it's Monday. So that happened. On Friday, at the end of my day, I got a bee lodged in my bonnet (which is a euphemism for my butt.) Said aforementioned butt bee led me to a free form, stream of consciousness rant on Facebook. Apparently, I wasn't the only one plagued with a butt bee, bee-cause a crap ton of people commented and shared the post. I followed it with a less intense, more pensive post about the founding fathers the responsibility of all citizens to defend the republic. Several people asked if I'd post these rants outside of Facebook, so here you are. Part one, et Part Deux, a dissonant duet bemoaning the never ending nightmare of the #worstcircusever. Just when you think it can't get worse...it does.

Before you read these posts, please take a moment to read Bill Browder's testimony regarding Sergei Magnitsky and Russian influence in DC. This got buried in the noise last week. Everyone needs to read it, share it, and sound the alarms! Browder clarifies just what those 'adoption' meetings were really about...weakening The Magnitsky Act...and why that should matter to you immensely. The flim-flammery continues from the #worstcircusever, but we will remain vigilant and diligent! Yes, we will!

Without further ado, two political rants and an afterthought.

Rant One...I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Going to Take it Anymore

Clears throat, steps on soapbox. If you're not interested in politics, scroll on. Shit's about to get real here.

I spent eight years listening to people compare President Obama to
Hitler, and there was absolutely no comparison. You can't be a socialist
and a facist, folks. The extreme of leftist ideology is communism and
the extreme of the right ideology is facism. Neither of these two
extremes have proven to make effective governments that support a free
and peaceful society. We need balance, which is why our government has
worked so far. It's not working any more.

Obama was slightly
left of center, he was not a progressive liberal. The death panels and
concentration camps in WalMarts? Yeah, those never happened. He never
took your guns, he never encouraged brutality or incivility. I didn't
agree with everything he did, and I had some serious reservations about
the NSA, the drone strikes, and several other things done while he was
in office. However, he did not act like a dictator. He acted like a
president, and I, for one, miss him every single day.

He was
intelligent, diplomatic, thoughtful, and an excellent communicator. He
respected women, he obviously loved his wife and daughters. His biggest
mistake was trying too hard to get the obstructionists in the GOP to
cooperate. McConnell made it clear that their agenda was to block
everything Obama put forward, including his uncontroversial Supreme
Court Pick, which was infuriating. Yet, Obama kept reaching. Apparently,
obstructing is their only skill, because they can't even get it
together to repeal and replace the ACA after voting to repeal it it six
times and voting 54 times to defund and cripple it.

But I digress...

Today our national embarrassment, 45, encouraged our police officers to rough people up when they arrest them.

“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown
into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, and I
said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’” Trump said.
“Like when you
guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know,
the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve
just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the
hand away, OK?’” he added.

(It's fascinating to me how he
constantly seeks approval, even when he's suggesting something horrible.
He ends his sentences with 'OK?' regularly. Insecure, much?)

In
this country, we have something called due process. A suspect is
considered innocent until proven guilty. We have legal procedures and
proceedings that are put into place for a reason. Yet, over the past few
years we have seen people brutally shot, beaten, and killed while in
police custody without cause. We have a police brutality and systemic
racism problem, and it needs to be solved not encouraged.

He
pressured/bullied his Chief of Staff and Communications Director to
resign. He's threatening to fire the head of the FBI and DOJ to shut
down the Russia election investigation. That should alarm every single
citizen. This is not a drill.

45 has insulted, degraded, mocked,
and vilified the poor, people of color, LBGTQ people, Muslims, Hispanic
people, handicapped people, women, immigrants, liberals, leaders from
other countries, the free press...it would be easier to write a list of who he hasn't
insulted. His daily #twitterontheshitter
rants are increasingly unhinged and bizarre. His speech to the Boy
Scouts was unfreakingbelievably inappropriate. His new communications
director is a foul mouthed thug from...wait for it...Goldman Sachs. He's
got more former Goldman Sachs members in his swamp people cabinet than
there are people working for Goldman Sachs. Okay, that's an exaggeration
for literary effect. He's threatened and strong armed the head of the
FBI, the head of the DOJ, senators, representatives, governors,
celebrities, and citizens who disagree with him. He's surrounded himself
with sycophants and sociopaths. He's praised and fawned over dictators
and insulted democratically elected leaders. His cabinet is filled with
corrupt Kremlin cronies and big money GOP donors who have no government
experience. He's given his unqualified children and their spouses roles
in the government, let his daughter sit in for him at world events,
refused to show his tax returns, and never divested his business
interests...

...and he has rallied millions of American citizens
to believe that people who vote differently are their enemies. He's
dividing, distracting, and misdirecting the public in a constant stream
of chaos. Now he's telling our police officers to use brutality, just
like Hitler used his Brown Shirts to advance his agenda. His
administration uses doublespeak and alternative facts and presents them
as truths, much like Goebbels spread The Big Lie. He's threatening to
round up immigrants and imprison them in his big, stupid, expensive,
absurd wall, much like Hitler rounded up people and sent them to
concentration camps.

He is in every way unfit for office and if I
hear one more person say he lacks experience to understand how things
work I am going to lose my shit. If you lack experience to understand
how things work, you shouldn't have the job. Period.

Go back to
playing a successful businessman on TV, because you never were
successful in real life. Your father bankrolled you and you squandered
much of that nest egg. You'd have more money if you'd invested it. Six
bankruptcies, leading to your need to borrow from Russian oligarchs
which is why you can't show us your taxes. Right, Donald?

I have
had about all I can take of this shittiest shit show in the history of
shit shows. Every day is a fresh assault on decency, kindness,
compassion, civility. 45 is acting like a facist dictator, and is
working diligently to ensure that he takes complete control of our
government. We cannot let this happen.

If you disagree, feel
free to rant on your wall. No, seriously, I am not entertaining you
today. Maybe take some time and do some very deep reflecting on what's
really happening. Turn off Fox news and stop clicking on the fake news
shit in your social media feeds, because that's all designed to cloud
your vision and increase your fear. 45 could give a fart in a windstorm
about you and your problems. He's using you while he and his cronies
advance their coup. Hopefully you wake up before it's too late.

If you voted for this thin skinned narcissist, chances are I listened to
you bitch about Obama for 8 long years. Now it's my turn, and now it's
time for ALL GOOD PATRIOTS to rise up and fight for the principles upon
which this nation was founded.

Vive la resistance!

(You can click on the share button below to share this on Facebook!)

Rant Two...A More Thoughtful Missive on Why We Must Question EVERYTHING

I find it fascinating when people insist that we respect the
president, particularly a president who lacks complete respect for the
office of the president and the diplomacy it requires. This country was
not built on blind obedience to authority. It was built on passionate
defiance. Had the founding fathers respected the crown, and blindly
followed the demands of the king, this country and the principles upon
which it was built would never have existed. In fact, this country was
built on the idea that we should remain diligent as citizens against any
leader who threatens the Republic, particularly any leader who leans
towards demagoguery and absolute control. Even more importantly, we
should remain diligent against any leader who aligns himself with a
hostile foreign power, like, say, Russia.

I have never blindly
supported any president, regardless of my political views. I question
everything, because I know that the billionaires and corporations who
were fully unleashed by Citizens United are the real threat to our
Republic and they donate billions to our elected officials to curry
favor. That's true of both sides of the aisle. (You can find out who has
received what from whom on OpenSecrets.org.
It's a serious eye opener.) The people with the most money court the
most influence. Our Republic has become an Oligarchy and it's stretching
towards a Kleptocracy. Our new president surrounds himself with these
people, filled his cabinet with them. Need some names? Here are a few:
Betsy DeVos and her brother Eric Prince, Steve Bannon, Wilbur Ross,
Linda McMahon, Steve Mnuchin, Todd Ricketts... Behind the scenes pulling
strings? The Koch Brothers, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Sheldon Adelson,
Charles Schwab, Christopher Cline... (And for the record, President
Obama also manned his cabinet with the wolves of Wall Street and other
big money donors, fewer of them, but they were still there. I wasn't
happy about that, either.)

That swamp 45 railed against? He's
knee deep in the muck of it and he's dragging the rest of us down with
him. I, for one, refuse to acquiesce.

The founding fathers did
not want us to be blindly obedient, they wanted us to be ever watchful.
It is our duty to participate, to question, to engage. We can't sit back
and let our elected officials steer the ship for us, we need all hands
on deck, my hands, your hands, every hand. We need to be informed and
aware. That means reaching beyond social media, digging deeper,
researching news sources, so you know the truth. It means questioning
your beliefs and being willing to alter them when presented with
compelling evidence. It means having the difficult conversations, the
impassioned arguments. It means accepting that we will not always agree,
and we may disagree vehemently, but we are all in this together. There
is no us and them, that's a distraction and a lie. There is only us.
"We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish
justice, insure domestic tranquility." That is our responsibility as
citizens and it means questioning every elected official, even and
especially the president.

Here are some quotes from the founding fathers.:
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to
believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be
constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government."
George Washington, 1796

"The jaws of power are always open to
devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the
freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." John Adams

"If ye
love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater
than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We
seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that
feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the
government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to
restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and
interests." Patrick Henry

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Thomas Jefferson

As vigilant citizens, we cannot blindly accept the actions and motives
of any president. If we do, we are treading down a slippery slope. A
hostile foreign power attacked our election, they intend to continue,
and it's looking more and more as if the team surrounding our new
president actively participated in assisting this attack. 45 refuses to
even admit that it happened, and he's doing everything in his power to
squash the investigation. If that doesn't concern you, you are not
paying attention. This is not a liberal versus conservative situation,
this is a fight for the soul of our Republic. WAKE UP. Reject the
messaging, dig deeper, pay attention, speak truth to power, and when our
Republic is under siege, sound the alarms, before it's too late.
(You can click on the share button below to share this on Facebook!)

Feel free to share this post or share the rant links, but please don't copy/paste. These posts are set to public, so anyone can read, share, comment. I'm a writer, this is how I make my living. For the record, I don't entertain trolls or uncivil discourse. If you can't have a thoughtful discussion, neither of us is going to gain anything from the exercise. I somewhat regret the last two paragraphs of my first rant, because I don't want to shut out people who may disagree but want to mindfully discuss and debate. We can't progress without that. I had a bee up my butt, so that's my excuse. These posts are my opinion, they are supported by facts, but they're not the bee all end all. I don't claim to bee the oracle of all knowledge, just a member of the resistance whose pen is mightier than her sword.

An Afterthought.

We're in the thick of it right now. If you look at what is happening in Turkey and in Venezuela, heck if you look at Putin in Russia, it's clear that the strongman/dictator can still take power in our modern age. If we sit back and do nothing, it could happen here. We've already got an unhinged, insecure, man child demagogue who LIVES for attention in the White House. That's dangerous, especially since he's surrounded by nefarious people with equally nefarious agendas. First and foremost, he's knee deep in the borscht and Vladimir Putin is not fucking around. Concurrently, the GOP is using this chaos to their advantage. This really burns my biscuits, because they know we are under siege and they are putting party over country. I only hope they stop that shit before we find ourselves on the other side of a coup.

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